Wild Columbia River summer steelhead have been declining since 2009, and Bonneville Dam counts in 2021 showed the lowest returns since 1997.
Anglers in Washington can expect similar salmon fishing opportunities this year compared to 2021, with some improved opportunities in the ocean driven by strong expected coho returns, state fishery managers have announced.
Spring Chinook fishing will open under normal permanent regulations on Oregon’s Umatilla River this year for the first time since 2018.
Fishery managers from Washington and Oregon last week approved an opportunity to catch and retain legal-size white sturgeon in the lower 40 miles of the Columbia River beginning May 11.
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks fisheries biologists began tagging northern pike in portions of the Bitterroot, Clark Fork, and Clearwater rivers this week as part of a new study on pike movement in the Missoula area. The success of the study depends on reports from anglers who catch tagged fish.
Dworshak Reservoir is expected to be teeming with kokanee in 2022 based on annual surveys conducted in late summer 2021 that revealed record-high kokanee abundance in the reservoir, says Idaho Fish and Game.
An angler caught a smallmouth bass on Feb. 19 while fishing on the Gardner River at its confluence with the Yellowstone River, just outside of Yellowstone National Park.
With an apparently late and larger-than-predicted run of eulachon (smelt) migrating into the Columbia River, Oregon and Washington harvest managers set this week additional commercial test fishery harvest days through March 18, while Washington opened a recreational dip net fishery for smelt in the Cowlitz River. The Sandy River remains closed to recreational fishing for smelt.
A forecasted upriver spring chinook salmon run that is 25 percent more than the actual run of the fish in 2021 prompted Oregon and Washington fishery managers to open the lower Columbia River to spring chinook angling from Buoy 10 west of Astoria to Bonneville Dam beginning March 1.
In an effort to meet management objectives and provide necessary protection for dwindling wild steelhead populations, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Wednesday announced a full closure to all sport fishing
Oregon and Washington approved the first of the year spring chinook commercial gillnetting in the lower Columbia River during a two-state Columbia River Compact hearing Tuesday, Feb. 15. Commercial fishing in lower river Select Areas begin as soon as this week.
A two-year study showed Idaho’s wild steelhead are caught by anglers less often than hatchery fish, and they survive at a very high rate after being caught and released.
Alex Dietz of Bend was fly fishing with an egg pattern on the Deschutes River outside Warm Springs on Dec. 19, 2021 when he hooked a 5 pound 12 oz, 24-inch long mountain whitefish with a 14 inch girth.
The lowest return to the Columbia River of summer steelhead on record in 2021 is prompting states to continue protections for the fish into 2022.
Washington and Oregon this week reduced weekly sturgeon angling opportunities to three days a week in The Dalles pool during January as a way to help ensure fishing can extend to the end of the month.
Amid forecasts for low steelhead returns, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and tribal co-managers at the Hoh Tribe, Quileute Tribe, and Quinault Indian Nation, this week announced restrictions to sport and tribal fishing on Washington coastal rivers.
After a year with the worst return of steelhead to Washington’s coastal streams, the state’s fishery agency is saying the run is in decline and will likely get worse until ocean conditions improve.
Once extirpated in much of the Snake River basin, coho salmon are making a big return this year to basin tributaries, allowing Idaho and Oregon to open rivers to coho angling. Both states announced this month the opening of coho angling in the Grande Ronde and Clearwater rivers.
With a run of steelhead into Idaho that is one-third of the 10-year average and the third worst run in the last ten years, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game is dialing back the number of fish that recreational anglers can retain to one per day and three in possession.
Oregon and Washington are allowing the retention of fall adult and jack chinook in the recreational fishery downstream of Warrior Rock beginning Oct. 1.
With a continued higher than allowed catch of lower river tule Chinook salmon, listed under the Endangered Species Act, Washington and Oregon fisheries managers today shut down all salmon fishing below Bonneville Dam, except for coho fishing from Buoy 10 to Tongue Point.
Oregon and Washington fish and wildlife staffs say there is little more that can be done to protect the dismally small number of upriver summer steelhead migrating this year in the Columbia River basin short of shutting down all non-tribal fishing, and even that “would not move the needle,” one staff member said.
In response to extremely low returns to date of Columbia Basin upriver summer steelhead, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is adopting additional emergency rules to increase protections for wild summer steelhead in central and eastern Oregon Columbia River tributaries.
Due to higher-than-expected catch rates and unexpected impacts to a salmon stock listed under the Endangered Species Act, Chinook salmon retention on the Columbia River from the Buoy 10 line upstream to the Tongue Point/Rocky Point line will close effective Friday, Aug. 27.
As the Columbia River at Bonneville Dam warms to over 71 degrees Fahrenheit and with expectations of the second lowest steelhead run since Bonneville Dam was built, recreational angling for fall chinook, the largest remaining run of chinook salmon on the Columbia River, begins August 1.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
